Now, it's your turn: next year's Cree program

Well, people, this is technically my last week of schooling here at Blue Quills.

I go back and forth on coming back for a second year, and hope to make up my mind soon.

That said, there are many reasons why you should consider taking the program this fall. Below is more info on why the program rocks so much.

If people want still more info, just email cree@bluequills.ca. There are also printed and electronic versions of brochures and posters available for mail-out if you want to help spread the word.

ay-ay,
ekosi pitama,
Rick

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Blue Quills First Nations College
CREE LANGUAGE CERTIFICATE
September 2006 to June 2007 | St. Paul, Alberta

"Rebuilding community through language,
rebuilding language through community"

Program highlights:
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Students are active in the language — hearing
and speaking Cree — from day one

Language learning through classroom activities
and community-based immersion

Classes five days a week, Sept. through June
(10 months)

Sensitivity to needs of adult second-language learners

Small class sizes with excellent teacher-to-student ratio

On- and off-campus access to elders and speakers
fluent in Cree (‘Y’ dialect )

Emphasis on group participation and
learner/teacher team-building

Students help develop learning tools for program

Multimedia tools enable and enhance
individual study and review

Introduction to writing systems for Cree:
syllabics and roman alphabet (abc’s)

Restoring and revitalizing the voices of our
people in a fun, safe and supportive
learning environment


* * * DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: JUNE 30, 2006 * * *


For more info:

Phone 780-645-4455 or 1-888-645-4455 (toll-free in Western Canada)

Fax 780-645-5215

E-mail cree@bluequills.ca

Web www.bluequills.ca/cree

Aboriginal Studies ... minus the Aboriginal part

Here's a thought that takes me back to previous spins 'round university. As many of you know, many North American universities offer Aboriginal/Native studies courses; some even have entire faculties devoted to such things. And they're not without their critics. Some accuse these programs and courses of not really being all that Aboriginal, either in design or purpose. It's a fair question: are such fields of study more about than by Aboriginal peoples?

It's also a pretty big question, so let me just offer a partial answer by way of a wee story. A few years back, I took a 7-week intensive Cree language course at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, which shares a campus with the First Nations University of Canada. It was during that Cree course that FNUC professor Neal Mcleod encouraged me to attend the annual conference of the Canadian Indigenous and Native Studies Association (aka CINSA) in nearby Saskatoon.

And it was something Dr. Mcleod said at one of those CINSA sessions that has stayed with me to this day. In fact, I would now say at least a fair portion of my decision to persist with language-learning dates back to those words of wisdom.

In a room full of mostly non-aboriginal scholars, Mcleod put this fundamental question to all of us: Why is it, that while everyone accepts the validity and necessity of requiring students of the ancient classics of Rome and Athens to understand Latin and Greek, not one school anywhere in North America expects the same of any 'advanced' scholar of Aboriginal studies — i.e., to be fluent in an indigenous language?

Would we take any expert on Japan seriously if they didn't know one single word of Japanese? You know the answer. So why should I care about what 99% of 'Aboriginal' experts have to say?

(And, by the way, isn't saying you're an expert on Aboriginal peoples about as specific as saying you're an expert on 'Europeans?' It's about as useful...)

Just asking, people, just asking. Anyway, when Cree studies is hopefully and finally taught in Cree — nehiyawewinihk — across the country, then I know we'll have gotten somewhere.

ekosi,
Rick

Should we leave language to the linguists?

In a recent article in 'The Daily Californian,' a linguistics professor was quoted about the study of indigenous languages by experts like himself.

One section in the article pretty much sums up for me how useful the university linguistic approach is to those of us who want to learn how to speak an indigenous language:

A common misconception of linguists is that they can speak many different languages. Garrett's response to this stereotype is that linguists study languages, not speak them, and he himself is still far from becoming fluent in Yurok.

"I'm at that foreign language learning stage where, when someone's talking, you recognize as it goes along that you know each of the pieces but they're going too fast for you to put it all together and you want to say 'No, no, stop, wait! Talk four times as slow!'" Garrett said.

While I would never go so far as to say linguistics has no place whatsoever in promoting and supporting people's desire to actually speak — as oppposed to simply study — their language, I believe we need to get people talking in Cree, not merely about Cree.

At least this professor was candid and honest enough to acknowledge this fact.